


Running Up that Hill

by Haunted_Obsidian



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Daryl's doing what he thinks is best, Emotionally Hurt Rick, Epiphanies, M/M, Merle's a smug bastard, Rick needs Daryl, Unspoken Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 10:24:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haunted_Obsidian/pseuds/Haunted_Obsidian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for this prompt at lj_kinkmeme : </p><p>An epiphany is an experience of sudden and striking realization.<br/>I would love for someone to write the moment Rick realizes he's in love with Daryl (or vice versa).<br/>Author can go with whatever scene they want; I just want the realization to hit Rick (or Daryl) unexpectedly. I'd love the reaction as well. Would Rick be happy? Terrified? Guilty because he's thinking of Lori? Etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Up that Hill

Daryl sends him one last glance before turning around, and that's when it hits him, almost like a punch to the gut.

Rick Grimes is in love with Daryl Dixon.

It's though a veil has been lifted from his eyes, and for the first time in his life, he sees what's really there. His vision is clear, not hazy like before. The sky is blue, not gray; and the grass is green, no longer brown.

He takes a step back, gaze still lingering on the redneck as he walks towards his gleeful-looking brother, and all Rick can think is this is _wrongwrongwrong_.

All of it. 

Daryl leaving, his silence, and his damned heart fluttering in his chest as his brain reminds him that the man he loves is walking away from him, possibly forever.

He takes another step back as he sees Merle grin like the devil himself, and wrap his arm around his little brother's shoulders, and Rick just wants to go over to the bastard and rip his grimy paw away from Daryl's shoulders. 

Something warm runs down Rick's cheek, and he hopes that it's just a bead of sweat, because the emptiness that is currently filling up the void in his chest worries him. It's getting too deep, making him feel nothing but hollow. 

He swipes the damn thing away anyway, blue eyes still locked on Daryl until the man's head disappears into the wooded area, behind branches and leaves, and all he knows is that it shouldn't be like this. 

Daryl—the man who has been there more than anyone else in the last seven months, seven months that have been filled with nothing but anger, fear, and frustration—has just left him at the moment he realizes that he's in love with him. 

Rick's angry, angry that he didn't figure this shit out sooner, because if he had, maybe, just maybe, Daryl would've stayed. 

But now he's alone. Truly alone. 

He feels his knees going weak as he continues back towards the car, and wonders if he's going to collapse into a heap on the ground. He wants to.

He needs Daryl. 

_Needs_ him like fuckin' air and water and hope; needs him like he's never needed anything or anyone before.

He'd meant it when he'd said it, but the truth of the statement hadn't actually settled in until Daryl was leaving, fading away like a ghost into the shadows.

_I need you!_

Pain shoots through him like an electric shock, and he feels his boot-clad foot stumble on the dying foliage and dirt beneath him, but he clenches his jaw and grits his teeth and yanks the strap of the gun he's holding up and over his head and places it in the trunk Daryl opened just minutes before. 

There's a buzzing in his ear, probably a fly or gnat, but he pays it no attention. All he can think of is Daryl, and his damned eyes bearing holes into his and telling him that he's going, and that's that.

The next thing he knows, Glenn and Maggie have started a shouting match, and all he honestly wants to do is scream and shout at the top of his lungs for everyone just to shut the fuck up because Daryl left them—left _him_ —and he doesn't want to hear anymore of their shit. 

Instead, he chooses for something akin to that, and orders everyone back in the car.

The drive back to the prison is silent and painful, and all Rick knows is that the car has one less person in it than they started out with, and there's not a damned thing he can do to fix it now.


End file.
